The proposal outlines a five year study which takes advantage of the unique diversity of child rearing settings in Israel to investigate a developmental problem of special significance for science and society in our time. That problem is the role of social institutions and social processes in the development by the child of a sense of competence and commitment both to activities and to people, as against feelings of alienation, impotence, or active hostility. The projected research builds on the work already accomplished by a team of American and Israeli social scientists in a four year comparative study of socialization among kibbutz, moshav and city families in Israel. That project, now in its final year, provides us with unique resources in personnel, cooperative working relations, methods, experience, raw data, and analyzed research results. The proposed investigation involves three stages: 1) The further analysis of already collected data. Information on socialization processes and outcomes is already available from carefully drawn samples of children raised in kibbutzim, moshavin and Israeli city schools. Other groups studied that are of special theoretical interest include kibbutz children sleeping at home (vs. in the children's house), children of Oriental Jewish background, and children of Soviet emigres. 2) Observational studies in selected ecological contrasts. Systematic observations will be carried out in particular kibbutzim, moshavim or ethnic groups (e.g. Eastern immigrants, Arab families) who exhibit features regarded critical for the development of commitment vs. alienation. 3) Experiments in selected ecological settings. These involve making systematic changes in existing socialization settings in order to investigate particular hypotheses; for example, introducing transferable features of kibbutz upbringing in a random sample of moshavim, and vice versa. Contemporary Israeli society is uniquely suited for studying the development of commitment vs. alienation as a function of deliberately designed social innovations. Moreover, unlike other socialist countries, Israel resembles the U.S. in the pluralistic and pragmatic character of its population and political system. As a result, the outcome of the proposed research will have significance both for American science and American society.